


Something About Being There

by wbh



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Benny Ships It, Blow Jobs, Fix-It, Frottage, M/M, Making Out, POV Dean Winchester, Purgatory, Purgatory Sex, Reapers are not Angels, Season 8, Smart Dean, of a sort, original canon reaper rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-20 05:47:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5993731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wbh/pseuds/wbh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean and Cas are thrown into Purgatory by exploding Dick, Dean catches Cas before he can flee. Together, they try to survive in monster hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Bri. This fic is complete – it totals approximately 17K words and will be updated regularly.  
> Brief scene of dialogue from 7.23  
> All mistakes are mine, comments and kudos appreciated!

“Did you really think you could trump me?” Dick Roman asked, smug, irritating grin still in place as he dropped pieces of fake bone at his feet.

“Honestly?” Dean shook his head a little in reply, trying not to look directly at Cas, creeping silently up behind Dick. “No.” And at that, Dean whipped the _real_ blood-soaked magic bone out of his jacket as Cas grabbed Dick Roman by his stupidly quaffed hair and jerked his head back. It was surprisingly easy to stab the bone through the leviathan’s neck, as if his gross, black, monster ooze had rotted the human double from the inside out. Dick screamed and gurgled as Dean heard Sam and Kevin burst through the door of lab. He glanced over, but didn’t turn to look at them, instead held his breath. He watched Dick flail, and prayed this Hail Mary play to take out all the leviathan at once would actually work.

“Figured we’d have to catch you off guard,” Dean told the impaled monster. He could see Cas watching Dick with the same caution he had, and they both flinched back as Dick let his human head fall away to reveal his giant, hideous mouth. As black ooze started pouring out of Dick, Dean glanced quickly at Cas, uncomfortably reminded of when his friend had served as a leviathan host. But then a strange force burst from Dick, nearly invisible but pulsing through the room, and Dean focused on the problem at hand again. The strange wave continued to throb out of the monster as more black filth oozed out of his nose and down his chin, and Dean had a very, very bad feeling as Dick started to smile.

The monster laughed as the energy suddenly sucked back into him, and that was all Dean saw before he was hit by a wave of gross, exploding Dick Roman.

* * *

 

At first, Dean thought it was quiet, but he gradually became aware of faint howling noises in the distance. He was lying on something surprisingly soft; it didn’t feel like the concrete floor of the Sucrocorp lab, more like the leaves and peat of a dense forest. His eyes were closed, but his body ached and he didn’t particularly feel like moving.

“Wake up,” came Cas’s deep voice from above him. Dean blinked his eyes open reluctantly and sat up.

“Good,” said Cas as Dean stood up and turned around to face him, “We need to get out of here.”

“Where are we?” asked Dean, glancing around at a dark forest that was definitely _not_ where they’d been when they killed Dick Roman.

“You don’t know?” asked Cas, continuing his irritating habit of not saying anything directly.

Dean sighed. “Last thing I remember we ganked Dick,” he said.

“And where would he go in death?” Cas asked again, eyes wide, like he was a teacher eager for Dean to get to the right answer on his own.

Dean’s stomach bottomed out. He narrowed his eyes at Cas. “What, are you telling me–”

“Every soul here is a monster,” Cas interrupted, gazing intently at Dean. Dean swallowed and glanced around them nervously, suddenly very attuned to the rustling leaves. “This is where they come to prey on each other for all eternity,” Cas continued.

“We’re in _purgatory_?” Dean asked to make sure, trying not to let his growing fear creep into his voice. “How do we get out?”

“I’m afraid we’re much more likely to be ripped to shreds,” Cas answered, sounding entirely too matter-of-fact. Dean experienced a horrified moment of wondering if Cas had really improved at all in the crazy department since agreeing to storm Dick’s headquarters with him and Sam. A growl sounded behind Dean, and he whipped around to try to see what was behind him. Werewolf? Vampire? Rougarou?

“Cas I think we better –” Dean started to say, turning back around, but cut himself off when he saw Cas shift his weight in that unmistakable way that meant he was getting ready to fly.

Dean threw himself forward and grabbed Cas by the arm, holding on so tightly it must have been painful. Dean didn’t care; he was scared and now he was mad as hell on top of it. “Cas, what the hell man?” Dean’s anger and betrayal were clear in his voice, even as he tried to keep it down and not attract more monsters. Cas winced and looked away, but Dean wasn’t having it anymore. He grabbed Cas’s other arm, and shook the angel, hard. Dean hoped his teeth rattled. “That’s it, huh? You’re just gonna to leave me here to get mauled?”

“Dean…” Cas said slowly, in that sad, reluctant way of his. Dean hated him a little in that moment. He wouldn’t ever, ever leave Cas alone in a place like this, and it cut to his core that Cas had been about to do just that to him. “I’m an angel stuck in a realm of blood and horror. There will be things focused on me, hunting just me, now that I’m here.”

“And there won’t be things hunting me?” Dean demanded, but his anger was fading at the broken sound of Cas’s voice.

“Not just monsters, Dean, leviathan!” Cas said, finally looking Dean in the eye again, his expression pleading, “They’ll be coming after me, after everything I’ve done. I want to…I want to keep them away from you. Please let me go.”

“Cas, if you think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell I’d –” Dean started to say, but he was cut off as the threatening darkness around them finally held true to its whispering promise, and a large shape leapt at him and Cas from the trees.

Dean reacted swiftly, shoving Cas away and spinning around to avoid being taken down by what he now saw was a werewolf, snarling and pawing at the ground where he’d just been standing, acting more like a rabid animal than anything close to human. Dean had always hated hunting werewolves; he’d never admitted it – John Winchester wouldn’t have stood for any sympathy for the monsters they hunted – but their animalistic teeth and long, claw-like fingers didn’t do enough to hide that there was still something far too human about them in the eyes. The beast in front of him growled and flipped her long hair; Dean drew his silver knife from his belt, grateful he’d taken it into the battle at Sucrocorp, even though Sam had pointed out it was too small to be useful against leviathan. He tamped down firmly on an unwanted thought that bubbled up in his brain, wondering if this werewolf looked anything like one he’d killed, maybe years ago. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. He had to survive.

The werewolf jumped him, and he slashed out with the knife, managing to slice through her belly. She screamed in pain as the silver touched her; the smell of scorched flesh filled the air, and blood bubbled from the wound to soak her dirty blouse. It barely slowed her down though. Dean parried her claws with his knife and tried to deal with the other very bad part of this situation.

“Cas!” he yelled, no longer concerned with staying hidden, now that they’d been discovered. He didn’t take his eyes off the werewolf he was fighting though, too concerned with not getting his face clawed off to see how Cas was doing, “They’re pack animals, there’ll be more – you’ve got to fight!” Dean slashed viciously as he yelled, and managed to slice off two of the werewolf’s fingers. She howled in pain, clutching at her mangled hand, and Dean chanced a glance across the clearing to check on Castiel.

What he saw was not encouraging. Cas was still standing, but he had his back to a tree, and was staring at his hands in a daze, not seeming aware at all of the two werewolves barreling toward him through the thicket.

Shit. This wasn’t going to happen on Dean’s watch. The werewolf in front of him was still howling about her injured hand, and he tried to use the distraction to move in for the kill. She stepped out of the way before he could stab her in the heart, but she didn’t move to attack again. With one final, pained growl, she turned tail and fled back into the cover of the trees.

Dean didn’t bother to check if she was really gone. The other two werewolves were almost on Cas. He leapt across the clearing, making it to Cas’s side just in time to slash at the werewolf who got to him first, not letting him get within five feet of the angel. Now all Dean had to do was fight off two werewolves while trying to get through to Mr. Shell-Shock. Easy.

“Cas, come on, you’ve gotta fight!” Dean shouted at him, while he slashed at and grappled with the unkempt werewolves trying to claw their way through him. He could hear Cas breathing harshly behind him, and that scared him more than the monsters. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Cas do that before. Dean hardened himself, tried to remember how his dad had pulled him through moments of fear like this when he was young. “Get it together, man! I don’t care if you don’t like conflict, conflict is happening!”

Dean’s words didn’t have any effect; he glanced behind him to see Cas still staring at his shaking hands. In his fear, Dean felt angrier at Cas in that moment than he had since Cas told him he was working with Crowley to open purgatory in the first place. This was all his fault.

Dean’s moment of distraction to check on Cas cost him. The second werewolf body-slammed him, and he tumbled to the ground, both wolves now on top of him, slobbering and biting, and trying to claw at him through his leather jacket. Dean struggled, and managed to get his knife arm free enough to angle the blade up into one wolf’s chest. Surprise filled his mutated face as Dean plunged the silver knife into his heart; blood poured out of the wound, bathing Dean in the warm liquid as he fought to wretch his knife out of the werewolf’s chest. It was stuck, caught on a rib or something. Dean saw in the other one’s face that he knew this was his moment. The werewolf grinned. Dean panicked, yanking at his stubborn knife and yelling, before he had a chance to think about what he was doing, “Castiel, help me!”

It was like Dean had flipped a switch. Before he or the werewolf had a chance to react, Cas slammed into the werewolf and flipped him off of Dean, and swiftly brought his hand down on the werewolf’s head, white light pulsing from his palm. The werewolf convulsed for a few seconds at the smiting, but then lay still, his eye sockets hollow and smoking.

Dean shoved the other dead werewolf off of him and tried to catch his breath, standing up slowly and using shaking hands to wipe the blood on the blade of his knife off on his jeans. His shirt and jacket were soaked with blood, but he miraculously had managed to fight three werewolves without being scratched by any of them. Would that even matter here? Could Dean turn into a monster _in purgatory_? He shut down that train of thought, not wanting to panic.

“Cas, you ok?” he asked the angel, who was standing far too still over the eyeless corpse. He didn’t answer. “Cas?” Dean prompted again.

“Dean,” Cas replied slowly, as if emerging from a trance. “I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly and swiftly turning to face Dean, “I’m sorry. I don’t know –”

“Hey man, it’s ok, you came though,” Dean cut him off, deciding positive encouragement was probably the best way to go right now. His anger at Cas drained away as he looked at his pale and wide-eyed face. “We did it. Glad you were here.”

“Dean…I’m going to make this worse,” Cas said. “You should let me go. Beasts like these are the very least of the monsters that will be hunting me.”

“Cas, we are not separating,” Dean cut in angrily, “I don’t care if all of purgatory attacks us at once!”

“Dean,” Cas began again, more angrily, his mouth now set in a firm line. “You don’t –” he was cut off again, not by Dean or a werewolf this time, but by a column of black smoke that fell out of the night sky, slamming into the clearing with a loud crash. The smoke solidified into a black ooze, and Dean had a horrible idea he knew exactly what it was.

“Leviathan!” said Cas, and to Dean’s surprise he pushed Dean behind him, standing firmly between what was now black ooze in human form, and Dean. It settled into looking like just a human in a business suit as they watched, which Dean thought was strange. They were back on the leviathan’s home turf now – why keep playing human? Still, he shouldn’t complain. He knew how to gank these ass clowns when they looked like this. Or at least, slow them down.

His knife wasn’t big enough to get the job done though. He glanced around wildly, hoping one of the dead werewolves had been carrying some kind of larger weapon. Luck was with him. The werewolf Cas had smote had a large blade on a sturdy handle attached to his belt. The blade looked disturbingly like bone, but Dean couldn’t be picky. As Cas rushed toward the leviathan, evidently intent on making some sort of stupid sacrifice play to save Dean, Dean went for the blade. He wretched it free easily enough, and hefted what felt like a cross between a short ax and a machete in his hands as he rushed toward the leviathan in a wide arc, trying to come at it from the side. He reached the beast just as it slammed Cas to the ground, and watched as it threw its head back to open its wide mouth in triumph. Dean swung his blade with every ounce of strength he had, and chopped the mouth-head from the thing’s Armani-suit-covered shoulders.

The head tumbled to the ground a few feet away, and black stained the forest floor around the body. Dean held his arm out to help Cas up.

“Come on, we’ve got to get out of here before that thing puts itself back together,” said Dean, as he hauled Cas to his feet.

“Or before more of them arrive,” Cas said gravely, “And if you won’t let me leave you…” It was Cas’s turn to grab Dean’s arm in an uncomfortably tight grip. Dean barely felt it before his whole body jerked forward into nothingness, pulled along by the all-too familiar sensation of an angel taking him for a ride.


	2. Chapter 2

Cas and Dean rematerialized in another dark clearing, this one with a dark, bubbling creek running through it. Dean felt that special kind of nausea that always accompanied angel-zapping, and tried to force his suddenly weak knees to keep supporting him. He succeeded, if barely, grateful that Cas had silently held onto his arm a little longer than might have seemed strictly necessary.

“Where are we?” Dean asked, looking around and trying to see through the dark trees surrounding them. It would be just their luck for a nest of vampires or something to live by this creek Cas had picked at random for all he knew.

“Still in purgatory,” Cas responded, and Dean had to bite back a scathing, sarcastic comment at that. _Duh_ they were still in purgatory. They’d been here less than half an hour and Dean could already tell that the air felt different here. “I transported us to the nearest source of water,” Cas continued. “Leviathan will avoid water unless they can use it somehow. They find it…distasteful.”

Cas would probably know best. “Yeah, well, let’s hope you’re right,” Dean said. As he listened in to the forest around them, and didn’t hear anything like the kind of growls and howls he’d heard in the werewolf clearing, or anything screeching from the sky like the leviathan had, Dean’s adrenaline finally started to fade. His hands were shaking, but he jammed them stubbornly in his jacket pockets so Cas wouldn’t see. He was exhausted. God, how long had he been awake? The attack on Sucrocorp had taken most of the day, and he’d been so geared up about it he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Fighting off three werewolves hadn’t done him any favors.

Thinking about the fight they’d only just escaped also made Dean think about the sticky blood now drying on his shirt. After asking Cas if the purgatory water was safe, and getting a perhaps less-enthusiastic-than-desired nod, Dean shucked off his jacket and then shed his shirt, dunking it in the creek to try and soak out the blood before the stains set or made dried blood make his skin itch. It wasn’t like he’d have a change of clothes in this place. He glanced at Cas, taking in the angel’s no-longer pristine white hospital scrubs and muddy tan overcoat, and hoped Cas didn’t feel uncomfortable.

“You wanna wash up too, Cas?” he asked.

“No, but I’ll watch over you Dean. If anything attacks us while you take care of your shirt, I’ll be ready.”

At that uncomfortable and sadly likely possibility, Dean decided to put his jacket back on just for extra protection, shirt or no shirt. It was worth looking like a long-haired model on the cover of a romance novel to not get his back clawed to hell while he wasn’t fully on his guard. Once he was a little more dressed, Dean glanced up at Cas again. He seemed…different than he had before they’d been sent to purgatory. No rambling, only not making sense in that normal Cas way.

“Are you feeling ok?” he asked, trying to eye Cas critically without looking like he was.

“You mean am I…” Cas made a spinning motion with his finger by his temple, which might have, if their circumstances hadn’t been so very un-funny, made Dean want to laugh.

“Yeah, uh, I guess you could put it that way, sure,” Dean said, trying to sound more lighthearted than he felt.

“No, I think our trip here cleared my head. I’m feeling much like my old self. But then, who really knows what sane is anyway? I could just think I am.”

Dean sobered even further, and finally gave up on his shirt. He wasn’t going to get any more of the blood out, and might as well try to lay it out to dry. “Yeah,” he said faintly, not sure what else to say. Cas seemed sane enough to him, so he figured that’d have to do. He yawned.

“You need to sleep,” Cas said, brooking no argument. Dean knew he was right. He would be no good to Cas if he suddenly collapsed from sleep depravation, and he was tired enough that his fighting skills wouldn’t be much use now anyway.

“Yeah, alright,” Dean said, “But we can go in shifts, if you need to.”

“I don’t require sleep Dean,” Cas said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, well, just in case,” Dean insisted, sitting down with his back to the largest tree he could find, trying to give himself some cover and not feel too self-conscious about Cas looming over him. Cas stood very still, his back to Dean as he held a vigil gazing out at the dark, ominous forest around them. Cas didn’t deserve to be here. It was Dean who’d talked him into joining the attack on Sucrocorp in the first place. Sure, they’d needed Cas to find the right Dick, but Dean could have insisted Cas stay out of the final confrontation. If he’d been far enough away, he could have escaped the blast and the one-way-ticket to monster hell.

“Hey, Cas, buddy…we’re gonna get through this,” Dean said firmly, trying to keep his worry that he wouldn’t be able to fulfill that promise out of his voice. Cas didn’t seemed to notice.

“You sound so certain,” he replied. His tone was flat, and without seeing his face, Dean couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“Well, I am. Because we have to. I’m gonna get you out of this. Winchester guarantee.”

Cas was silent for a little while. Dean thought he’d let the matter drop, but then he caught a soft “Goodnight, Dean,” just as he was drifting off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Dean wasn’t sure how long he slept. But when he jerked awake to the sight of Cas standing stiffly in exactly the same place he’d been when Dean fell asleep, it was light out. Well. Lighter. The forest wasn’t shrouded in pitch black darkness anymore, but whatever light had illuminated their surroundings didn’t feel like a bright sun. Dean felt like he was looking at everything through a grey haze, one that made Cas’s dirty coat and hospital scrubs look almost the same, dull color.

He stretched and stood up. “Well, at least we know it’s not just night here all the time,” Dean said. Cas turned to face him.

“Good morning, Dean,” he said. It felt so little like morning that Dean wondered if he was making a joke. It was hard to tell. Cas looked like he normally did, serious faced and intense.

“Morning Cas,” he settled on as a reply, “Anything happen while I was out?”

“No, the water protected us,” Cas said, as Dean shook out his t-shirt, which had been lying on the ground all night. He shucked off his jacket and put the mostly-blood-free shirt back on.

“Well, that’s good to know about the water, but we should probably get moving if we want to get out of here,” Dean said, picking up the long-handled bone blade he’d taken off the dead werewolf the night before.

“How do you think we might get out of here, Dean? I’m not even entirely sure how we arrived, other than that it was clearly connected with Dick Roman’s death.”

“We’re not gonna figure it out sitting around here,” Dean replied, trying not to let Cas’s pessimism get to him. They _would_ get out of here. There had to be a way. “Let’s not waste whatever sad excuse for daylight this is,” Dean said, striding around Cas to head off in a direction chosen at random. Cas didn’t reply, but he did follow.

As they trudged through purgatory, Dean was amazed at how much monster hell looked like an ordinary forest. When he’d seen it in the dark the night before, it had seemed much more otherworldly than it did now. Aside from the odd grey tone of the light, and the occasional growl or scream in the distance that put both him and Cas on edge, purgatory was almost disturbingly normal.

Dean was keyed up, trying to move as swiftly and silently as possible, to stay out of sight of whatever might be around them. The longer they walked without being attacked, though, the more his thoughts started to wander. He wondered what had happened to Sam and Kevin. Did they know where Cas and Dean had ended up? Cas had figured it out pretty quickly, but Sam might not have any clues about where they’d disappeared to. Dean tried not to let himself imagine that Sam thought he was dead. They’d dealt with enough supernatural bullshit over the years that there was no way Sam would jump to that conclusion. He was probably even now working with Kevin to try to find a way to rescue Dean and Cas. At the very least, Dean was sure Sam had his hands full taking care of Kevin; Crowley was probably still looking for him, so it would be best if Sam took him on the road. And maybe that might distract him for a while, make it harder for them to work on figuring out how to save Dean and Cas. If that was the case, Dean would just have to work harder on finding a way out for him and Cas from this end.

Cas. Dean’s thoughts turned to the angel trailing after him. Cas was as wary as Dean, glancing around constantly as they moved through the shadows. Luckily his silly hospital-issue slippers were perfect for making as little noise as possible, even through the deep leaf piles on the ground. He was certainly having an easier time of it than Dean in his boots. Dean almost couldn’t believe Cas was here with him; it was hard enough to stop being surprised by the fact Cas was _alive_ , never mind that he suddenly had all his marbles again. After everything they’d been through together…

Dean hadn’t been _surprised_ , necessarily, when Cas took off back to heaven after they’d stopped the apocalypse. The dude had important angel stuff to worry about, as the civil war in heaven that followed had made abundantly clear. Still, Dean had been hurting from losing Sammy, and he’d thought he and Cas had made enough of a connection that maybe the angel would have wanted to stay. He’d spent an all-too-brief time fantasizing about hunting with Cas, contrary to Sam’s dying wish he get out of the game, before the angel left and decided it for him. And then after that…well, Dean wasn’t willing to admit he’d made the wrong call trying to look out for Sam at the expense of everything else when he got back from hell without his soul, and Cas had been distant and angry enough during all that angel civil war crap that Dean had almost convinced himself that he’d imagined how close they’d gotten the previous year. But then Cas had started acting like Dean had abandoned him, and through that whole purgatory-opening debacle with Crowley, Dean had realized Cas seemed more _lost_ than distant, and by the time he’d worked through his anger at Cas for being enough of a dumbass to make a deal with _Crowley_ , Cas was gone and Dean was left with nothing but hollow and shameful guilt.

But here Cas was, trailing behind him through monster hell. The angel who’d once claimed he’d always come when Dean called. And he had, mostly. Whenever he didn’t, it was usually for a good reason. Dean just didn’t know what to _do_ with Cas being here. All the confusing and complicated feelings he had for Cas, that had grown through the years as Cas rebelled against heaven and helped them ice the devil, had been buried for so many years since under a mountain of crap. As much as Dean wanted to revisit them, he wasn’t sure if he could. On one level, this was a second chance. Castiel was back, for real, not working against him, apologetic and present. But Dean wasn’t sure if it wasn’t already too late. And besides that, the location wasn’t exactly ideal to work through this kind of emotional bullshit. Hunting didn’t really make for a healthy inner life, and Dean sensed already that being in purgatory would probably be like one long hunt.

Dean jumped as Cas put a hand on his shoulder. He looked grim. “Dean, I can sense them. Leviathan,” he said quickly, before Dean could ask what was wrong.

“Well, zap us the hell out of here!” Dean said, not keen to go another round with the big-mouthed freaks.

“They’re too close. I can’t. Run.”

Dean didn’t need to be told twice. He took off, not really sure where he was going, only barely paying attention to Cas following him. He didn’t get far at all before he saw a familiar-looking column of black smoke fall from the sky and crash right in his path. He heard the impact of two more levia-meteors behind him, and turned to see they’d boxed him and Cas into a small clearing. He swung back around to concentrate on the one closest to him, which had just made itself a person-suit out of the black ooze it had landed as. Dean hefted his bone blade and ran at the leviathan. His only hope was to catch it off-guard before it came at him.

It was almost too easy, Dean thought, as the leviathan’s douchebag-faced head hit the ground. He kicked the head as far away from the body as he could, sending it soaring through the trees like a soccer ball. That taken care of, he turned back to Cas and the remaining two monster asshats.

Dean’s stomach dropped. It was like a replay of the night before; Cas was on his back, a leviathan perched over him with its head thrown back, showing off its horrible, gaping mouth. He’d just gotten Cas back. This wasn’t going to be how he lost him, not to leviathan, not again. With a shout, hoping to distract it, Dean ran as fast as he could to where Cas lay, and body-slammed the leviathan. Not his smartest move ever, Dean thought as he hit the ground painfully, his head entirely too close to the leviathan’s still-snapping jaws. He managed to get his blade in between them and take off this one’s head too, with a gross spurt of black goo, before he heard a shout from behind him.

“Dean, look out!” Cas cried.

Dean twisted to see Cas clinging to the remaining leviathan, which was trying to lung toward Dean. Cas was holding it back by the back of its suit-jacket as he struggled, still on his knees, to get his glowing, smitey hand close enough to its head to do something. Dean watched in horror, frozen in way he hadn’t been in years, as the leviathan kicked out at Cas just as Cas stumbled to his feet. Cas lost his balance and fell forward, bringing the leviathan and himself down on top of Dean. Dean’s blade was still in his hand, and as the weight of monster and angel fell on him, the handle twisted the wrong way and buried the blade in his belly.

Dean barely registered the leviathan’s scream of pain as Cas finally got his hand to its head and burned the thing’s eyes out of its skull. The blinding pain in his stomach, just below his ribs, only lessened slightly as Cas rolled the leviathan off of him.

“Dean!” Cas called at him, and Dean realized he must have closed his eyes as he opened them to look at Cas’s face, inches from his own. Cas was cradling Dean’s face in his own hands.

“A little…help?” Dean managed to wheeze, trying not to panic. What could Cas even do? He could smite in purgatory, and fly, but could he heal?

Dean heard the flutter of Cas’s wings, and the world tilted around him before he and Cas landed next to a pond, all the way on the other side of purgatory for all Dean knew. More water. Good. No leviathan, or, at least, less likely.

“Dean,” Cas said seriously, and man, why was he talking? Couldn’t he see Dean was tired? “I have to pull the blade out to heal you. It will probably hurt, but you have to stay still.”

Dean wasn’t even sure what Cas was talking about. He felt light-headed and nauseous, but was very against the idea of more pain. “Wait, Cas, don’t –” he started to say, but it turned into a scream as Cas yanked the blade free in one swift movement.

Dean felt Cas’s hand clamp against his mouth, muffling his uncontrollable moan of pain. Tears leaked out of the corners of Dean’s eyes as Cas put a glowing hand, feather-light, on the gaping wound in Dean’s side. Far more slowly than Dean remembered this happening in the past, his flesh knit back together, and the fuzziness in his brain retreated. Soon enough, though, there was smooth skin under Cas’s hand and only the bloodstains on Dean’s shirt showed just how bad it had been.

Cas swayed and fell to his side, sitting down hard on the ground. Dean lurched up into a sitting position himself to catch him, arms around Cas’s shoulders to keep him steady and upright.

“You alright there, buddy?” he asked.

“I believe I should be asking you that,” Cas responded. He sounded ashamed, and wouldn’t look Dean in the eye.

“All fine here. Thanks for the healing mojo,” Dean said slowly, trying to catch Cas’s eye and gauge if his collapse had been a fluke. When Cas didn’t respond, Dean decided he seemed steady enough, and got to his feet.

He shucked off his jacket and shirt for the second time in as many days, thankful that at least their safe havens were equipped with water for him to wash the blood out. The slice through his shirt from his own blade wasn’t something he could fix here, but he wasn’t going to go around wearing sticky, bloody clothing if he could help it.

Dean had only just knelt and put his shirt in the surprisingly clear pond when he heard Cas speak softly behind him. “I’ve put you in danger,” Cas said, so quietly Dean almost didn’t hear him.

Dean whipped around. Not this conversation again. Hell no. Cas was still on the ground, looking up at him with mournful eyes. His jaw was rigid, and he looked horribly like he had just come to a painful decision.

“Cas, we talked about this,” Dean said, uncomfortably aware that he was shirtless. He grabbed his jacket, putting it on and wrapping it around himself with his arms folded across his chest. This was not a half-naked kind of conversation.

“We talked about this _before_ I almost got you killed,” Cas countered, still not looking Dean in the eye. “I thought that now you’d see –”

“See what, Cas? That I’d be dead if you hadn’t been here to heal me?”

“You wouldn’t have needed healing if I hadn’t been there! The leviathan were after me, not you!”

Dean didn’t have a good come-back to that. He stood there silently, shaking with anxiety that this was it. Cas was going to disappear on him, and Dean would never find him again. Just when he’d finally gotten him back. When they could finally try everything again, this friendship, or the more than friendship Dean hadn’t wanted to even think about all those years ago.

Cas surprised him by not disappearing, but speaking again. “Besides, I don’t know why you care so much about what happens to me. After what I did.” He sounded so damn tired.

Dean walked toward him, slowly, carefully. “Cas, I’m not gonna pretend I’m not mad. A lot of crap went down, and you should have talked to me. Should have _listened_ to me. But…I should have talked to you too. Sam and me ain’t exactly blameless. And I should have listened to you, should have asked if you were ok. I guess I was scared, and I thought you’d be fine on your own, but I’m here now.” Suddenly, all that bullshit John Winchester had drilled into Dean about emotions and manliness and monsters and hunting didn’t seem important. It wasn’t easy, it felt like opening a wound to let poison out, but Dean was in goddam purgatory, and he was finally going to say what he felt. What he wanted. He knelt down at Cas’s side. “Cas…I need you. If leviathan keep coming after us, we can take them. We took care of those freaks just now, didn’t we? And we killed Dick before that. They’ll learn to be afraid of _us_.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Cas said, but he sounded, mercifully, less certain than before.

“Cas, let me tell you something I’m absolutely certain of,” Dean said, finally catching Cas’s gaze with his own. Under the angel’s steely exterior, Dean thought he caught a glimmer of hope. Dean took a deep breath and plunged on, “I am not going to make it through this without you. Understand?”

Cas looked at him for a long time. Dean held his breath. Cas could disappear on him right now, still thinking that was best for Dean. They had a ton of stuff to work through if they stayed together, but Dean firmly believed it was the only way either of them would make it through this alive. Very slowly, Cas leaned forward and closed the distance between them. He rested his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “I understand,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m tired,” Cas said, sounding surprised. It had been a good few minutes since he’d healed Dean, but he hadn’t gotten up from his place on the ground. “I didn’t think I could _be_ tired.”

That didn’t sound good. “Maybe this place isn’t good for you.” Dean said, trying not too get too worried. Now that he wasn’t as concerned the angel would take off on him, he looked Cas over more closely. Cas looked exhausted. “You’ve been flying and zapping and healing…you feel like you’re running out of mojo?”

“Maybe. Maybe sleep would help,” Cas sounded dubious, but Dean didn’t exactly have a better idea.

Dean stood up and walked back to the pond, pulling his sodden shirt out of the water. Probably he’d give up on trying to keep it clean if they stayed here too much longer, but he wasn’t going to give up hope of getting out just yet. He lay the shirt out on the ground to dry, and tugged his jacket tightly around himself again. That done, he looked around; there was a dense crop of trees not far from the pond. The small space between them was probably riddled with roots, but sleeping there would be more secure than just staying out in the open by the pond.

He nodded toward it, “That’s probably your best spot for sleeping, dude. It is your turn, after all. I’ll take watch.”

Cas looked for a brief moment like he wanted to argue, but then he hung his head and nodded, clearly too tired to protest. He slowly made his way to his feet and plodded heavily to the little sheltered spot Dean had indicated. He flopped to the ground and, from what Dean could tell, fell asleep almost instantly. Aside from the times he’d passed out after time-travel, and that brief moment Dean had seen Cas basically catatonic in the hospital before he and Sam took off and left Cas with Sam’s hell memories, this was the first time Dean had seen Cas sleep. It was downright unnerving.

Dean washed his blade in the lake while Cas slept. The damn thing had almost killed him, but it seemed appropriate to keep it. The perfect weapon for this nightmare freak land.

* * *

 

The next afternoon found Dean sticking his blade through a rugaru, ignoring the gurgling sound it made as he dropped it to the ground, while Cas smote another one behind him. They’d ended up staying by the pond for a while, because Cas had slept through most of the afternoon, and they hadn’t wanted to be on the move at night. Dean had taken a sleeping shift that night, after Cas insisted he was recovered enough, and they’d set off through purgatory again in what Dean supposed had to be called the morning. He still didn’t have any idea of what exactly they were looking for. He told himself they hadn’t been there that long, and something was bound to come to him soon, but telling himself that hadn’t stop the sense of creeping dread that had grown on him all day.

They’d walked long enough before getting jumped by the rugarus that the light was starting to fade. Dean had no idea how long the light had lasted; he was starting to wish he was the kind of guy to wear a watch. Ignoring the dead rugaru at his feet, Dean turned to Cas to suggest something he’d been thinking about all day.

“This might be a dumb idea, but is there any way we could ward a sleeping area down here? Make a small space the monsters couldn’t see or get into? Might help with the fact we both seem to need to sleep down here – we could both sleep at night and not lose any daylight.” Dean figured if anyone knew if this was even possible or not, it would be Cas. Angels seemed to have wards for everything, and he definitely knew more about how purgatory worked than Dean did.

Cas was quiet for a while, but he appeared to be thinking it over, which Dean took as a good sign. “I believe I could make something work,” he finally said, slowly, as if he wasn’t really convinced. “But we’d need to find several trees very close together, and we’d have to stay close to each other. The affected area would not be large.”

“Dude, I’m cool with whatever as long as we can both sleep,” said Dean, “I’m running on fumes and you don’t exactly look all ‘up at at ‘em’ either.” In truth, Cas looked just as exhausted as he had the previous day. His recovery nap apparently hadn’t gotten the job done.

“Alright,” said Cas, nodding. He pointed to something over Dean’s shoulder. “That area looks promising.”

And so they jogged with what little energy they had left to the thicket of trees Cas had pointed out, and settled into a small space between some very thin but very dense trees. Cas hadn’t been kidding about the staying close to each other thing; they had to sit shoulder to shoulder to settle in a tight circle of thin trunks. It was a little cramped, but if this worked Dean wouldn’t be complaining.

Using Dean’s almost-deathtrap, nightmare bone blade, Cas proceeded to carve several weird sigils into every tree around them in a circle, chanting lowly in some language Dean couldn’t understand a word of as he did so. The sigils didn’t look familiar either, which meant Dean had been right about freaky angel-magic. He knew a few monster ward sigils from all the research he’d done over the years, but nothing this complex. When Cas finally finished the last tree, the sigils all glowed, and Dean felt a pulse of _something_ emanate from the trees.

“It’s done,” Cas said, slumping back against Dean, who was the only thing he really had to lean on.

“It worked? You’re absolutely sure?” Dean asked. He wasn’t about to let them both nod off if there was the slightest chance this wouldn’t keep them hidden.

“Yes. I felt them resonate. Nothing will be able to see or touch us,” Cas said, with a tone of finality. Dean wasn’t sure what he meant by ‘resonate,’ but he wasn’t really up to questioning it anymore.

“Man, what’s the deal with this place anyway? It’s just…a _forest_ , but it’s a monster hunting ground for eternity? What the hell was god thinking?”

Cas didn’t answer right away, and to be honest, Dean hadn’t really expected one. But, after such a long time that Dean had started thinking about other things, like how much he missed clean socks, Cas spoke.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said, and Dean turned his attention to the angel immediately. “When my father realized he had to get rid of the leviathan, that they were a danger to all the other life he had created, he made purgatory. He made it a pleasant place. It was a green place. And in purgatory, the leviathan wouldn’t know hunger. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now you don’t need to eat here.” Dean had noticed that, but he hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t wanted to jinx it, because it sure as shit would be bad to suddenly become hungry in a place that, as far as he could tell, had no food. Not unless he wanted to try the semi-cannibalism of eating dead monster, and ew.

Cas was still talking. “When the monsters started appearing, born from purgatory and tainted by different variations of the leviathan’s hunger, my father thought he could give them a gift in death – send them to a plane where their hunger would not exist, and they could, in essence, live as themselves but without the need for violence. I have often wondered if it wouldn’t have been kinder for us to have spent the extra energy purifying those souls and sending them to heaven. In any case, by the time we realized something was wrong, it was too late – my father was gone, and we couldn’t do anything to fix what was happening here.” Cas turned to look straight at Dean, doing that freaky thing he did sometimes where he looked into Dean’s eyes and it felt like he was seeing Dean’s soul. “There is no hunger in purgatory, no need to feed. No vampire craves blood here, no werewolf _needs_ to feed on hearts, but they do it anyway. Perhaps they were stuck in their cycle of instinct and violence so long they forgot that they could choose. Or perhaps they grew to like it. And now this whole place is tainted by their actions, and what was once vibrant is dulled by violence and pared down to pure impulse.”

Cas trailed off after that. Dean was almost sure Cas had more to say on the topic, but he remained quiet. Dean’s head was reeling. That was a lot to take in. The monsters that hadn’t left them alone this whole time didn’t _need_ to feed on them? They _weren’t_ driven by compulsion? Well, maybe they were, just of a different sort. Talk about a fucked up nightmare. Not for the first time, Dean wished he were anywhere else. Well, maybe not hell. And, he considered, there were some upsides. The nearly constant combat meant he didn’t really have time to dwell on anything, to get caught up in his head and his unsavory thoughts. And he wasn’t alone. Cas was here. He felt guilty for being relieved that Cas was stuck here too, but damn him, it was true.

Feeling brave, since Cas had just opened up so much, Dean decided to finally say something he’d been afraid to even think. “How are we gonna get out of here man? I mean, what are we even looking for? Are we just gonna wander purgatory, hoping we find something? I know I said we’d do that, but what the hell is that gonna do?” Dean was suddenly very conscious of the warm weight of Cas pressed into his side, forced close by their small space. He’d already burst the personal space bubble, but now now he leaning toward Dean more than before, Cas’s hand resting lightly on his thigh.

“There are small gaps in the fabric of realms,” Cas said slowly, almost like he was reluctant to share something that was already making Dean’s heart leap with hope. “Angels use them sometimes. It’s how my garrison was able to get to you in hell. If one can find the gaps, they can be used to travel through to other planes. We haven’t encountered one yet. Or I’m too weak now to sense them. They can only be seen and used by very powerful beings. I don’t want to get your hopes up that we will ever find one. Purgatory is the most well-sealed realm of all. My father made it that way, when he threw the leviathan in here. Finding a way in was hard enough from earth; I was only able to open purgatory in the first place to get at the souls because I’d found one of a gaps, but we sealed that one. It was the only one I knew of, and I have no idea where it is in here anyway.”

“I can’t promise you about the not getting my hopes up thing, Cas,” Dean said, turning his head to find Cas still looking at him intently. “But I’d much rather have slim hope than none. We can do this. We’ve been through worse shit. Hell, we stopped the fucking apocalypse.” Dean meant that to sound brave and self-assured, but it came out a bit more like a quiet plea. Cas still nodded seriously, agreeing with Dean. Believing in him.

Dean felt a longing, one he’d hadn’t had in years, rise up inside of him. It was an urge he’d always pushed deep, deep down inside, pretended he’d never felt, because it scared him so much. It was always easier to pretend he was only interested in women, that he’d never watched the sway of a guy’s ass as he walked away, or admired the shape of a dude’s lips while sharing a beer. John Winchester had made it pretty clear what he felt about his son jacking off to dudes the one time he’d caught Dean with a Sports Illustrated that was _not_ the swimsuit issue. So it had been easier to bury that part of himself, and throw away the key. But Cas had always tested his resolve, and so Dean had had to put more effort into ignoring what Cas made him feel, more than he had into anything before in his life. Only now, he thought slowly, he was in purgatory. _Purgatory_ , with no way out. As much as he told Cas they’d find a way, in his heart he knew they’d probably be stuck here til they died. And that was likely to be sooner rather than later. So, fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck John, and fuck everything. Dean leaned forward, and pressed his lips to Cas’s.

It was a chaste kiss, a barely-there brush of lips before Dean pulled away self-consciously. As much as he’d wanted to know what Cas’s lips felt like (softer than he’d expected, given how chapped they always looked), he wasn’t sure if Cas wanted this. Hell, if their experience in that brothel was anything to go by, Dean wasn’t sure Cas would want this with _anyone_. Cas’s pupils were blown, and his lips were parted a little in what Dean hoped was surprise and not something like anger. They breathed for a few moments, Dean wondering if he should apologize.

“Cas,” he started to say, but Cas cut him off by surging forward and pressing their mouths together again. Their lips were still closed, but Dean relaxed and melted into the kiss as Cas brought a hand up to cup his jaw. Dean could feel his stubble rasping against Cas’s hand, and that somehow only made the whole situation hotter. Dean started to laugh a little, in relief and at his circumstances. Here he was, in purgatory, hiding from monsters in a sigiled-up ring of trees, dick half-hard from one non-dirty kiss with an angel.

Cas broke the kiss and looked Dean in the eye again. “I didn’t think you wanted that too,” he said.

Dean hesitated, but he’d started the ball rolling on this thing. Why not commit? He put his arm around Cas and pulled him flush against his side. “Don’t worry, buddy. You and me are on the same page.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little uncertain about the pacing of this, but I decided to go with it. Thoughts appreciated, thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

Armed with the newly aired possibility of escaping the crazy monster hell-hole one day, Dean and Cas continued to wander through purgatory. They made sigil-camps at night, when they found dense enough pockets of trees and they could, and otherwise took turns keeping watch. When they didn’t have sigil protection, there was about a fifty percent chance some kind of bottom feeding nasty would try to ambush their campsite and take them both out. Dean preferred the sigil-tree nights, cuddled up close to Cas out of both necessity and desire, able to finally let his guard down and press Cas against the ground while they explored each other. He discovered Cas was a more aggressive kisser than he’d expected, once he got over his initial shyness. Cas liked to hold onto the back of Dean’s head to keep him still, and explore Dean’s mouth with his tongue, flicking it back and forth and letting Dean chase the taste of him in turn in slow, lazy kisses. They didn’t talk about what the hell it was they were doing. They also didn’t talk about all the years of tension and bad decisions and fuck-ups that still lay between them. The constant danger they were in had somehow ripped away all those layers and barriers that had built up, and none of that crap seemed important. Why continue to hold a grudge when they both might die any second? Dean grew almost comfortable with the head-space purgatory put him in. It was…pure. The days flew by, a blur of combat, running, and fear, and if Dean could cuddle with Cas at the end of the day, be close to him, that took some of the horrible edge off.

They hadn’t gone any further than kissing; making out like teenagers, really. Dean had touched Cas’s dick over his thin hospital pants a few times, pleasantly surprised to find the angel was as rock hard as he was. But Dean wasn’t comfortable enough yet with their mostly-proven-secure, angel-magic-protected sleeping places to risk getting caught with his pants down, and he suspected Cas wasn’t either. It was hard to find the space or time to furtively masturbate, given what the rest of their lives were like. Dean went to sleep unsatisfied most nights, and his only recourse was that he was sometimes lucky enough to have the time to jerk off quickly onto the forest floor the next morning after Cas left their hovel. It was kind of silly to be self-conscious about having his dick out around Cas, who’d palmed him through his jeans enough times at this point to nearly drive Dean crazy, but Dean couldn’t help himself. He wanted the first time Cas saw him coming to be on his own terms. Preferably when he’d just made Cas come too, and Cas had that blissed-out, post-orgasmic look on his face. Dean wasn’t sure what Cas was doing about the blue-balls situation. Maybe angels didn’t have that problem.

Things started to blur together, all of purgatory bleeding into just one memory of three-hundred-sixty-degree combat. But one day, their situation finally changed. Dean had no idea how long they’d been there; he’d given up counting the days about the same time he’d given up on keeping his shirt blood-free, or his face clean. He was beyond even caring that he and Cas were both pretty gross by earth-standards. Cas for his part was wearing scrubs that more closely matched the color of the forest floor than the pristine white they’d been at the hospital. His normal five o’clock shadow has also turned into a full-blown, if short, beard, which Dean stubbornly refused to acknowledge was all manner of hot.

They’d just fought off a freaking _pack_ of vampires, new fangy-creeps appearing almost faster than Cas could smite them or Dean could chop their heads off. They finally killed what seemed like the last of them, both of them panting heavily on opposite sides of a large cleaning, Dean from the exertion of multiple decapitations, and Cas from all the running around he’d done trying to smite as many vampiric assholes as possible. He still got tired far too easily, something about purgatory itself taking its toll on his grace, particularly if he used his angel mojo too much, and physical exhaustion seemed to hit him in a way it never had back on earth. Dean started to smile, happy he and Cas had once again come through mostly in-tact, when something slammed into him out of nowhere, and he was knocked to the ground.

“Dean!” Cas yelled from across the clearing, but he was too far away to do anything about the vampire currently on top of Dean, snarling and salivating in his face like some kind of rabid animal. Dean tried so shove it off of him enough to stop it from biting him while he reached desperately for his blade. It lay inches out of his reach on the ground, and he strained to get his fingers around the long handle. He couldn’t quite reach it, and he shoved against the vampire harder in desperation, hoping to throw it off. He didn’t quite manage it, but something flew into his line of sight and barreled into the vampire as Dean pushed it into the air, tackling it off of him and onto the ground to Dean’s right.

At first, he thought it was Cas, that the angel had somehow, implausibly, made it to Dean in time to save him. But then, as he caught Cas still running toward him out of the corner of his eye, Dean realized the man straddling the vampire was someone he’d never seen before. He scrambled to his feet and watched as, fangs bared, this new arrival swung his own bone blade and chopped off the attacking vampire’s head.

Whoever this dude was, he was definitely a vampire. A fangs out, blood-drinking, saved-Dean’s-ass vampire. Dean tried to slow his breathing as he hefted his blade up, not wanted to get caught off guard by what was probably a trick this weirdo vamp was playing on him. He felt more than saw Cas stumble to a halt at his side, assessing the new arrival alongside Dean.

The vampire retracted his fangs. “Afternoon, fellas. No thanks for the rescue?” he asked, not turned to look at Dean or Cas. His voice was distinctive; some kind of southern accent Dean had definitely heard before. Maybe Louisiana.

“Sure,” Dean replied, trying not to let how surreal he found this situation show. A vamp _talking_ to him. Here. “I won’t make you find out what happens to a monster that dies in monster hell.” Cas had been musing on this question for a while now, and Dean found it both endearing and irritating. Who gave a damn? It was the monsters own fault for not leaving them the hell alone. He hefted his blade to better let the vampire know what he meant.

“Hmmm…I dunno if that’s your best move here, friend,” the vampire replied, and he started walking. Dean mirrored him, and nudged Cas to follow. No way he was letting this asshole get behind them. “I got a proposition. For both of you.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” asked Dean, not bothering to hide his skepticism.

“I know how you can get out of here.”

Dean laughed at that crock of shit. “We’ve been here long enough to know that’s not possible,” he lied. “Try again, fang-face.”

He glanced sideways at Cas as he said this, hoping the vampire wouldn’t notice. No need to show their hand. If he could keep the guy talking, he might reveal some better way out than the very slim chance Cas had. And then Dean could kill him after.

“There’s a way out for the crazy _live_ human who somehow got himself stuck in this place,” the vampire countered, and dammit, Dean was starting to get interested. This guy didn’t seem intent on attacking him or Cas. Maybe he was one of a select few who’d realized their hunger was gone in purgatory. There had to be some of them down here who broke free of their instincts. “I’ve heard quite a few rumors,” the vampire continued. Yeah. That was convincing.

“Bullshit. And even if that was true, doesn’t help my friend here,” Dean nodded to Cas. He would have been more worried about outing his angelic nature, but Dean and Cas had learned pretty quick that monsters here could just _sense_ Cas, like they knew he was Not Meant To Be Here, in capital letters, even more so than Dean, who they sensed well enough as it was.

“Well, there’s no telling. I dunno if it’s angel-friendly too. He’s not supposed to be here neither. But suit yourself. You two can keep going your merry way, keep fighting forever. Hell, maybe you’ll even turn on each other. That would be quite the entertaining fight. I’ve seen it many a time.”

Dean paused, weighing the vampire’s words. He dismissed the idea he and Cas would ever turn on each other down here, but considered the merit of listening to the proposal about another way out. He and Cas hadn’t made any headway at all in the ‘wander until we maybe find a gap in the fabric between worlds’ department. And they’d been looking for weeks. Maybe longer. If this guy wasn’t bullshitting them, it might be worth the risk of letting him get close. After all, if he attacked, they could always gank the bastard. “What’ve you got then?” Dean finally asked, causing Cas to look at him sharply. Cas didn’t say anything though, which Dean was grateful for.

“Sorry,” the vampire replied, laughing softly, “We’re not doing this half-assed. I’m not stupid enough to think you might not just kill me if I tell you were the exit is. You’ll have to follow me to get the goods.”

“And you want to guide us through purgatory?” Cas cut in, finally contributing to the conversation. “I find it far more likely you would lead us to some friends of yours, a trap to attack us when we’re vulnerable.”

Dean was glad Cas was keeping him talking. If the vampire was playing them, it was likely he’d get bored and attack if they kept deflecting.

“Why would I do that, angel-bright?” the vampire asked, innocence all over his tone. Dean wasn’t buying it. “And anyway, you two just killed all my old friends.”

“Cas is right, there’s something in this for you,” Dean cut in. “What is it?”

The vampire seemed to sense he was cornered. “I need a ride,” he admitted.

“What?” Dean had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

“It’s a _human_ portal. Only humans. I show you where, you take me through with you,” he explained. The vampire made all this sound so damn easy. There had to be a catch.

“Sorry pal, but that still leaves one of us behind and that doesn’t work for me,” Dean said forcefully, moving closer to Cas. He resisted the stupid urge to grab onto Cas’s arm or hand. This was a life or death situation, not some kind of chick flick. “You leading us into a trap or turning on us is starting to seem like your best option here. According to you, apparently that sort of thing happens all the time.” Blunt to say it like that, but Dean figured he might as well put it out there. They were all thinking it.

“I wouldn’t trick you, you two are my friends now – you’re my way out,” the vampire said with an unsettling smile.

“Yeah, somehow I still don’t trust you,” Dean pointed out, annoyed. Cas was glancing at Dean now, probably wondering if he should step into this conversation. Dean was sort of grateful he’d backed off. He felt like he was handling this, and Cas letting him do the talking told him he probably wasn’t fucking it up.

“Well hell, don’t trust me! Don’t trust anyone here, that’s the very first rule,” said the vampire, still smiling.

Dean sighed. He glanced at Cas. He was unwilling to take his eyes off the vampire for too long, but he needed to know where Cas stood on this.

“We are running out of other options, Dean,” Cas said, characteristically blunt. Classic Cas too, talking about the mission or the problem while ignoring what he might have wanted or needed.

Dean sighed. “We’re not doing this unless it can work for an angel,” he said firmly. “You figure that out, count us in.”

“Aw hell –” the vampire started to say, looking put-out for the first time since Dean had started talking to him. Good. Wipe that smug smile off his face.

“Hey,” Dean said, finally feeling a little cheerful himself now that he’d taken control of the conversation. “Not doing this half-assed, remember?”

* * *

 

“Since we’re all gonna be travelling together, might as well trade names,” the vampire said, after what Dean thought had been probably an hour of awkward silence between the three of them, Dean and Cas still keeping their distance from and their eyes on the bloodsucker. They’d been walking long enough that Dean was starting to suspect he really _wasn’t_ leading them to a pack of his friends as dinner, unless he was playing a very long game.

“I’m Benny,” the vampire supplied, when neither Cas nor Dean replied. “Benny Lafitte.”

“Dean Winchester. He’s Castiel,” Dean supplied shortly, hoping to go back to giving Benny the silent treatment.

“Winchester, huh?” Benny asked, sounding impressed. “More than a few freaks down here know that name. You’ve iced a lot of my kind. Plenty of other monsters too.”

“Yeah, well, you’re all probably thinking of my dad,” Dean said, dismissing Benny’s attempt at flattery.

“Nah, I recognized the first name,” Benny said, shaking his head. “Dean Winchester. Lots of things that go bump in the night have nightmares about you.”

Dean found himself smiling softly at that, and tried very, very hard not to acknowledge how fucked up it was that that made him happy.

Sam would think that was fucked up. He’d always been more hesitant about the job, more likely to sympathize with monsters. He was the one who’d wanted Dean out of the game after he was gone. Dean really could have gone either way; he didn’t resent his time with Lisa, but to say it hadn’t ended well would be an understatement. Dean was probably always going to carry the world of hunters along with him, some terrible parody of the kind of ‘baggage’ other people claimed stopped them from having relationships. On the other hand, it had always been so much easier to be with Cas. Cas had always known exactly what Dean was, and still wanted to spend time with him. He’d seen what Dean had become in _hell_ and didn’t run away from him. Dean halted that train of thought before it got too far. He just hoped Sam wasn’t going crazy looking for him. And that he was taking care of the kid; Kevin hadn’t deserved to be dragged into their fucked up way of life, prophet of the lord or no. Maybe Sam could help him get out of it, like he’d always been pushing Dean to.

“You two do know why you keep gettin’ swamped by nasties, right?” Benny asked, apparently refusing to let conversation die now that he’d started it. “Your humanity downright stinks up the place. And you, hot wings…you glow like some kind of lighthouse for ports in a storm. Got freaks drawn to you like moths.”

Dean had suspected as much, the longer they’d been here. Even when they were cautious as hell, and deadly quiet, monsters still found them every day. He hadn’t wanted to admit it though. Fucking vampire, didn’t know when to shut up.

“Dean…you know he’s right,” Cas said quietly, and Benny had the good grace to look surprised at the support. “I’m drawing far more attention than you would alone, and –”

“Cas, if you finish that sentence, I’m gonna kick your ass. We’ve talked about this, and I’m not fucking leaving you. End of discussion.” Dean was so angry he didn’t look at Cas as he talked, and even stalked ahead of him a bit, not caring that it went against to the whole ‘not leaving him behind’ thing he’d just yelled about.

Benny didn’t try to make conversation again for a while.

* * *

 

They stopped at night, which Benny agreed to. Although he complained it would slow them down, he admitted that without good night vision, Dean trying to move through purgatory after dark was pretty much a death wish. Cas found a ring of trees to make a sigil camp, and Dean shooed Benny away.

“Our little secret, man,” said Dean, not answering Benny’s question about what the hell it was they were doing. “You should be proud. I’m just following the first rule of purgatory.”

Benny laughed at that, and Dean tried firmly to tamp down on the strange burst of good feelings he had toward the bloodsucker at the sound. “That you are, brother,” Benny said. “I’ll keep watch up a tree like a self-respecting monster. I’ll holler at you if there’s a problem.”

“Yeah, uh, thanks,” said Dean, feeling awkward but trying not to antagonize Benny. He might be their way out, after all, and he hadn’t tried to kill them yet.

Dean joined Cas in their warded camp, which Cas had already set up and activated. The angel was sitting with his back against a tree, eyes closed and head tilted back. Dean was too tired to fool around, and definitely didn’t want to continue their conversation from earlier (he considered the matter decisively closed), so he just sat down next to him, throwing an arm around Cas and shifting closer to enjoy his warmth. He was _not_ snuggling.

Cas shifted and tucked himself closer to Dean, but instead of going to sleep right away, like Dean wanted to, he spoke. “Dean, this portal…if it works, you should use it.”

“Yeah Cas, we’re both going to use it,” Dean shot back, grumpy and exhausted and refusing to allow the conversation to go where it seemed like Cas wanted it to.

“Dean…Benny said it was a human portal. There’s no reason to think it would work for me too. Benny was human once, it makes sense he might be able to travel with you, but I’m...I’m a seraph, I don’t know if something like that would have the power to transport me. Benny’s portal is probably something created by purgatory _for_ you, to spit out a being it knows should not be here.”

“What, and you should be here, Cas?!” Dean sat up and looked at Cas, deadly serious. “Don’t you ever think that. You have done _nothing_ you can’t make up for. Hell, if this place is going to let _me_ go, with everything I’ve done, you’re coming to. Monster heaven should want to spit an angel back out too, to you know…actual heaven,” he finished lamely.

Cas didn’t look too convinced. He looked sad, and frustrated that Dean wasn’t understanding him. But Dean was pretty sure he did. “Look man, I know you feel guilty over shit. Join the club. Some of that shit was stuff you did to _me_ , and I forgive you. But if that isn’t enough, the only way you’re going to feel better, that you’ll be able to make up for it, is if we get out of here. Being stuck here in the ass-crack of the universe doesn’t make up for shit.” Dean hoped to hell Cas understood what he was saying. Cause there wouldn’t be any way to help Cas if he didn’t want to help himself.

Cas was quiet for a long time, but then he slowly put his hand on Dean’s and laced their fingers together. His head fell onto Dean’s shoulder, breath warm against Dean’s collar bone. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “You’re right. I…I just feel so lost, and here…here I sometimes feel like this is what I deserve. Except for you. If I was getting what I deserved I wouldn’t have you.”

“Well tough shit, Cas. I’m not going anywhere,” said Dean gruffly, squeezing Cas’s hand and hugging him close. “We’ll get out of this together, and then we’ll figure it out. I ain’t saying it’s gonna be easy, but it sure as shit will be better than this.”

Cas didn’t say anything else, but as he drifted off, Dean thought the angel felt more relaxed against him than he’d been the entire time they’d been sleeping next to each other.


	5. Chapter 5

Benny kept trying to start up a conversation with Dean or Cas over the next few days, in-between monster fights, which Dean found all kinds of annoying. It didn’t help that there was a part of Dean that was starting to _like_ the bastard. If there hadn’t been any vampirism involved, Dean might have been friends the dude. He was easy-going, and funny, and he whistled while they hunted, and he could decapitate with the best of them. He also had some fucking wrong opinions about Dean’s insistence that Cas wasn’t screwing with their plans for survival. And with Cas for some reason refusing to defend himself, Dean spent entirely too much time arguing with Benny.

“You don’t know squat about strength or weakness, fangy, you kill innocent people when their guard’s down!” Dean snarled as loudly as he dared, in response to one of Benny’s sharper barb’s about Dean’s flaws. Wanting to save Cas didn’t make him _weak_.

“I already told you, I ain’t killed for blood in years, even before lost my head!” Benny shot back, finally getting angry, and not sounding as amused as he normally did when he riled Dean up. Good. Dean hated being the only one in an argument who was actually seething with rage. Nothing worse than feeling like your head might explode while some bastard looks like you’re their Saturday night entertainment.

“Sure, I was stealing donated blood, but that’s better than suckin’ it out of people, right?” Benny continued. He’d been stubborn about this since they met, and Dean really wasn’t sure if he believed him. On the one hand, his story was remarkably consistent. On the other, Dean had only ever known one gang of vamps that went clean, blood-sucking wise, and as far as he knew, Benny hadn’t run with Lenore.

“You know what, screw you. There’s no way you can prove it here, and why the hell should I believe you?” Dean said, wanting to put an end to the whole conversation. “Just because you’re the only freak down here smart enough to figure out he doesn’t need to feed, doesn’t mean you had that kind of brains topside.”

“Well fuck you too. You’re stuck with me, in case you forgot. We made the deal, so you’re taking me out, whether or not you think I might go feral on the other side.” Benny had stopped walking now, and stood glaring at Dean, as if daring him to contradict him. Dean wouldn’t say it to his face, but he _had_ been thinking about just making a run for it and leaving Benny if they found this portal of his. If it even existed. He didn’t blame Benny for suspecting him of something that was definitely true.

Benny stared at Dean for a bit, then scoffed and turned away, “I dunno why the hell I’m botherin’ to argue with you. With all your nonsense about not taking the portal if Wings here can’t use it, we’ll probably never get there anyway. You know as well as I do that we’re not gonna to make it much longer with the two of you _both_ struttin’ around like a fancy, all-you-can-eat buffet.”

That tore it for Dean, “Let’s get a few things straight, you undead freak. Cas and I are getting out of here. Your way or another. We don’t have to stick around for this crap. You think we didn’t have options before you came along?” Dean paused, and grabbed Cas’s arm to show how serious he was. Dean couldn’t help but be grateful Cas wasn’t fighting him on this. Just a few days ago, he might have insisted that Benny was right, and that he wasn’t worth it, and that Dean should go on without him. Dean was glad something he’d said must have finally sunk in. “ _If_ we go through your magic portal, _if_ it even exists, it’ll be all three of us.” _Or two, if you don’t stop getting on my nerves_ , Dean thought, but didn’t say. “This is an all or nothing deal. If that portal of yours isn’t good enough for angels, we’re not taking it. Capisce?” Dean glared at Benny, and tightened his grip on his weapon. This suddenly felt like the moment Benny might turn on them, Dean having completely stomped on what the vamp wanted.

Benny didn’t attack though, he just stared at Dean for a few moments, brow furrowed. No, that wasn’t right, he was staring at Cas. Or, well, Dean and Cas. Dean’s hand on Cas’s arm.

“Yeah, I capisce, brother,” he finally said, shoulders relaxing, suddenly and almost eerily calm. There was a warmth in his eyes Dean hadn’t see before. “All or nothing. You got it.”

  

* * *

         

Even after that, Dean still didn’t really trust or believe Benny until the vamp saved Cas’s life. He’d made no secret he thought Cas was their biggest weakness, and he saved him anyway. Lobbed the head off a wraith that had managed to surprise the angel and toss him to the ground. At that moment, in Dean’s mind, their duo became a trio.

 

* * *

 

Time blurred. Dean continued to feel like they’d been trapped fighting monsters forever. Maybe they had. It had definitely been more than a few weeks since they’d met Benny. Hell, maybe it had been months. Sometimes it felt like years, and sometimes everything was so tangled together that Dean felt like it was just yesterday he and Cas had arrived and been attacked by werewolves. After Benny stopped antagonizing Cas, their little group became downright friendly. Cas was even surprisingly cordial to the vampire, maybe because Benny, by not feeding in purgatory, was doing what his father had intended with the place before it was corrupted. Maybe Benny gave Cas hope that people could change.

Dean and Cas still spent their sigil-guarded nights kissing, and they’d escalated to furtively and quickly jacking each other off, feeling slightly more secure with Benny watching the area from the trees. Dean loved the way Cas would try to hold in little groans of pleasure when Dean touched him, and it made his dick harder than he’d ever thought possible to remember this was the first time Cas had _ever_ felt anything like this.

Just as he’d become resigned to the blood caked on his shirt, Dean now sliced his way through purgatory in clothes stained with both of their come, which Benny either didn’t notice, or wisely chose not to say anything about.

Dean and Cas were spending the night in a larger glade than usual. They’d found a strange ring of trees, densely packed enough in a circle that Cas could carve his sigils and still make it work, but with a much larger, flatter space in the middle for them to lie down in than they usually had. It reminded Dean of the myths about ‘fairy rings’ he’d sometimes read about in hunter lore, and had dismissed as fiction until he found out fairies were disturbingly real. But there was finally enough space for him and Cas to lay side by side, and as he pulled Cas close, Dean knew this was the moment he’d really been waiting for.

He started out by kissing Cas, much like they had been for the past few months, or however long they’d been wandering through monster land. Like everything down here, kissing Cas was an almost animalistic experience. It was pure passion, pure pleasure, pure intensity. Especially now that Dean felt completely comfortable and could finally do what he’d been wanting to do since they’d started this whole thing. He’d mapped out the space of Cas’s mouth already, and knew just how Cas would react if he flicked his tongue against his, or nibbled his bottom lip, teasing the angel with his mouth while he pawed at his ass through his thin hospital pants. He’d had his hand on Cas’s dick a few times now, knew how his smooth shaft felt in his hand as Dean stroked him to completion. Tonight, though, Dean wanted to try something different.

He’d once, several years ago in a fit of screw-the-world, taken Sammy’s laptop into the bathroom of their shitty motel room while Sam was out doing research. He’d looked up some porno sites, which Sam probably expected him to, but they weren’t the genre Sam would have expected of him at all. Dean had watched – intrigued and more turned on that he had wanted to admit – his way through several videos of buff dudes going at it, swallowing each other’s cocks like it was their job (it was, he supposed) and fucking each other senseless on saggy mattresses in badly lit studios. Dean had jacked off into a towel in the motel bathroom. He came harder than he ever had before in his life. He may have done it twice. Then, he had erased the browser history, and left Sammy’s computer frozen on a porno site with lots of busty ladies. No harm, he’d thought at the time, but he’d never done it again.

But now, here with Cas, squeezing his angel’s ass as Cas sighed happily into his mouth, Dean wanted to try some of the things he’d seen that day, things that were still seared into his brain in his special, all top-secret, only-in-most-private-moments spank-bank collection. He sat up off of Cas and pulled his own shirt off, reaching down for Cas’s impatiently, not content until he’d laid Cas’s overcoat underneath them like a blanket, and flung Cas’s hospital scrub shirt to the side to land beside Dean’s own. He kissed Cas again, and reached down underneath Cas’s elastic waistband to grab at his cock, already hard and aching for him. Dean smiled against Cas’s mouth, and then broke the kiss to move slowly down Cas’s body, pressing his mouth to Cas’s chest softly in a dozen spots as he made his way down toward his cock. He glanced up to check on Cas and saw that the angel was looking at him quizzically, but he didn’t object. Dean pulled Cas’s pants down, urging the angel to lift his hips so that Dean could fully slide the fabric down and free his erection. God, Cas was gorgeous. With the quick and secret nature of his interactions with Cas’s dick so far, Dean hadn’t really been able to appreciate it. But there it was, curling toward Cas’s belly like it was straining for Dean’s touch. Dean wasn’t inclined to deny it.

He wrapped his hand firmly around the base, and at just that touch Cas moaned, stifling the sound with his own fist. Dean smirked, and then stared down Cas’s cock. He was sure he wanted to do what he was about to, but uncertain about his own performance. He always loved when chicks went down on him, their wet, hot mouths perfect around his aching cock, giving it just the friction and suction he needed. He wanted to do that for Cas, but he wasn’t sure he’d be any good at it. Oh well. He wasn’t going to get better without practice.

Dean leaned forward slowly, carefully, trying to give Cas time to stop him if he wasn’t into this. But Cas just groaned even louder with pleasure when Dean first wrapped his lips around Cas’s cock head, tasting the precome beading there and the musk that was just Cas. Dean tried to copy what had been done on him, hollowing his cheeks and taking as much of Cas into his mouth as he could, although it took much less of Cas’s substantial dick than he thought it would to trigger his gag reflex. Damn. Dean was suddenly very impressed with every girl who’d made it look easy when they deep throated him. Dean wasn’t a slouch in the size department himself.

Ok, so he couldn’t do some of the fancy shit yet. Dean wasn’t deterred. He wanted to make this good for Cas; this large grove was their best chance at having something like a normal night together; at _sleeping_ together, instead of whatever the hell it was they’d been furtively doing for the past few months. He took more of Cas in his mouth, muscling past his gag reflex by moving up and down along the shaft, trying to swirl his tongue in all the right ways on the head of Cas’s cock before dropping back to take as much of him in his mouth as he could handle.

Cas was panting above him, beside himself, probably trying to talk but Dean couldn’t make out any real words. At some point he’d fisted a hand in Dean’s hair, which had made Dean’s cock, already arching from all the kissing and touching they’d done earlier, not to mention from just giving the blow job, stand even more fully to attention.

“Dean,” Cas managed to finally pant out, raw and desperate.

Dean pulled off of Cas’s cock with a lewd, wet, sucking sound. “Yeah, Cas?” he replied.

“It’s not that I don’t…I’m very happy with what you’re doing,” Cas said, glassy-eyed and breathless. He brought his hand up to Dean’s cheek. “I want to bring you pleasure too,” he finally said, after a few moments staring into Dean’s eyes.

Mutual orgasm. Or as close as they could get. Yeah. Yeah, Dean could do that. What he really wanted, and would hopefully someday try with Cas, when they got out of this shitty excuse for a plane of existence, was to open Cas up like he’d seen in those pornos, and thrust into him, Cas keening and estatic through the whole thing. Or maybe, a dark part of him whispered, he’d want Cas to do that to him. To finally let go and just feel, intensely, as Cas pounded into him.

But doing either of those things right now was just not a good idea, and Dean knew this even in the heat of the moment. Even if they’d had something to ease the way, and he knew enough to know that lube made the whole thing way easier, especially for first-timers, Dean knew he didn’t want him or Cas walking funny in a land of killer monsters the day after. So he’d have to get creative. Mutual masturbation they’d already done, but maybe…

“I hear you, angel, and I got just the thing,” Dean said, smirking, and he moved off of Cas as quickly as he could, trying not to stumble as he shimmied out of his jeans and boxers to bare himself alongside Cas. He lay down on top of Cas again, this time putting his weight more fully against him, and nudging his cock up alongside Cas’s.

Cas gasped at the sensation, and Dean struggled not to echo him. It was so different than feeling Cas’s hand around him, the heat of Cas’s cock tingling alongside his own like an electric current, one that only sparked more intensely as he rolled his hips, rubbing his cock up against Cas’s at a slow, tortuous pace. Dean leaned in close to Cas, feeling the angel’s peach fuzz against his own cheek as he nuzzled against Cas and kissed the shell of his ear, leaving soft kisses on his neck. While Cas was distracted, he reached a hand down in between them to grab both of their cocks.

Cas chocked in a strangled gasp ask Dean started jacking them together, both of their cocks slick with precome and saliva from the blow-job. Dean finally let out his own low groan at how good it felt, Cas’s cock alongside his in his own fist, just the right pressure and friction and heat.

“Cas. Fuck. I don’t. I just,” Dean kept trying to say what he meant and faltering, the words swallowed up by the levels of self-doubt and uncertainty that still plagued him where Cas and dudes in general were concerned.

“I know Dean,” Cas panted out, “I love you too.”

Dean’s orgasm took him completely by surprise, and he moaned out Cas’s name as his come spattered the angel’s chest, burying his face in Cas’s shoulder. He kept jacking them both, panting as he rung out his own over-sensitive dick, until he felt Cas’s warm come spatter his bare chest.

Suddenly feeling boneless and exhausted, Dean moved himself slightly to the side so he wasn’t directly on top of Cas, and flopped down to drape himself on top of the angel. He buried his face in Cas’s neck and shook a little with the chill of his nudity as much as with what had just passed between them.

“Can you two keep it down?” Dean heard Benny call from his place in a tree above them. Dean jumped, startled out of his post-orgasmic haze. “Monsters may not be able to see or get at ya’ll down there, but we can sure as shit _hear_ you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've finally reached the smut, friends! Just one more chapter to go, thanks for reading! This is my first Destiel, any comments on my characterization, etc. will be treasured


	6. Chapter 6

A few days after what had been some of the best sex of Dean’s life, he and Cas and Benny were doing the usual – trudging through purgatory, beheading various monster-types that were stupid enough to jump them, and making their way to Benny’s mystery portal. It was starting to get downright boring. Dean laughed a little at that thought; had fighting his way through monster hell become so routine he’d started to complain about it like it was a nine-to-five? His life was really fucked up. Cas turned toward him to tilt his head quizzically at Dean’s unprompted laughter, but before Cas had a chance ask him about it, his attention was snatched by something else. He whipped around to glare to his right, and flung out an arm to stop Dean in his tracks.

Dean hefted his blade, not feeling like laughing anymore. He turned to glare in the same direction Cas was, trying to see whatever monster had caught the angel’s eye. Benny was doing the same, fangs out and weird bone-hatchet at the ready. Dean couldn’t see anything though, and no vampire or werewolf or ghoul came bursting through the trees to try and kill them.

After a few moments of tense silence, Dean finally said, “Cas, what is it man, what do you see? Is it leviathan?” Dean glanced up at the sky, but no levia-meteors rained down on them.

Cas was still squinting at the trees. “It’s…” he spoke slowly, like he wasn’t totally convinced of what he was about to say. “There’s a tear there. A small one. A gap in the fabric of purgatory.”

Dean gave up scanning the forest and turned to stare directly at Cas, “What, you’re sure? After all this fucking time?”

“What the hell are you two babbling about?” Benny asked, sounding annoyed.

“I told you we had a back up plan,” Dean said to him. They hadn’t exactly filled Benny in, but it hadn’t seemed necessary. Benny’s portal was a much more solid lead than Cas’s ‘maybe we’ll find a gap between the worlds’ plan.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to open it,” Cas said sadly, though he was still squinting toward where the portal apparently was. Maybe he was less sure of that than he sounded. “Being here drains my power, and I don’t think I have enough to do anything with a gap this small. I’m sorry.”

Dean’s heart, which had been leaping with hope that they might finally be getting the hell out, plummeted back to reality. “Hey, it’s ok man,” he said, trying not to sound too disappointed. “We’ve still got Benny’s –”

Dean was cut off as Cas took several stumbling steps backward, eyes wide. “It’s _opening_ ,” he said, sounding surprised and not at all in a good way. He turned to Dean. “We should hide.”

Dean didn’t need to be told twice. He and Cas and Benny ran from where Cas said the gap was. Dean still couldn’t see anything or even feel that it was ‘opening,’ but he trusted Cas on this. Just as the three of them hide behind some larger trees about fifty feet from the danger zone, a bright flash filled split the air, and Dean found himself looking at a strange site.

Three figures stood right where Cas had said the tear between worlds was, two of them vampires – confused looking, fangs out, dressed like douchebag club kids. The third figure was a wizened old man in a suit, who was holding the other two up by their shoulders. The old man pointed (thankfully in the opposite direction of where Dean’s little group was hiding) and gave the monsters a shove. The vampires took off, and soon Dean couldn’t even hear them crashing through the undergrowth any more. There was another flash of light, and then the old man was gone.

“Cas,” Dean said slowly, emerging from behind his tree. “What the hell was that?”

“That was a reaper, bringing a new soul to purgatory,” Cas answered, confirming what Dean had suspected about the creepy old dude. “They don’t just ferry human souls to heaven and hell, they’re also in charge of taking monsters to purgatory.”

“Wait, so that’s how I got here?” Benny asked, astounded. “How come I don’t remember?”

“New arrivals are often disoriented upon reaching their final plane,” Cas said matter-of-factly.

“Ok, well, why the hell was it using one of your ‘gaps between worlds,’” Dean demanded. “I thought you said those were what angels used to travel between heaven and hell and earth and stuff.”

“Reapers are the ones who made the gaps in the first place, so they could ferry souls to their destinations. Angels just found a way to use the paths when the reapers weren’t looking.” Cas paused before adding, “They can be very territorial.”

Dean sighed. It was so typical Cas that he hadn’t explained all of this when he’d first brought up this potential way out.

“Ok, new plan,” Dean said, taking charge, “If Cas can’t open this portal, we’re going to get a reaper to do it for us. Another one’ll have to come through here sooner or later, didn’t you say there aren’t many of these gaps into purgatory Cas?”

“Yes Dean, this is probably a way station for them. But I doubt a reaper would be willing to help us. They take souls to their final resting place, they don’t take the living anywhere – moving a soul _and_ a vessel is far more complicated. I suspect a reaper _could_ accomplish it, but they may not wish to. And they’d certainly be opposed to taking Benny.” Cas glanced at Benny apologetically, “Your soul is already in its final resting place, after all.”

“No way I could convince that grim fellow otherwise, huh?” Benny asked, smiling softly. Dean knew what he was thinking.

“I meant what I said, Benny,” Dean interrupted before Benny could get any further. “All three of us are getting out of here.”

“I admire your commitment Dean, but how do you plan to convince a reaper to go against its nature?” Cas asked. “I don’t know much about them; they are creatures of Death, not creations of my father. Angels have always avoided them. Luckily they have left us alone as well.”

In spite of what Cas had just said, Dean smirked. This was probably his worst plan ever, but he’d already decided he wasn’t going to back out. “We’re gonna trap a reaper.”

* * *

 

Even though it had been years, Dean mostly remembered the sigils and symbols used for the circle Alastair had trapped Tessa and the other reaper in when he’d tried to break one of the sixty-six seals back before the apocalypse. Sure, it had been a long time ago, but it had been a pretty tense situation, and the details were seared into Dean’s brain. That, or his memory was just sharper because of the ghost-y projecting he’d been doing at the time. But even though he thought he could probably reproduce it on his own, he wasn’t totally confident on all of it.

“You might need to help me, buddy,” Dean said to Cas. They’d cleared out a large, circular space in the dirt where the reaper portal was, and Benny had gone to fetch sticks and leaves and whatever else he could find that might help them write or create the symbols Dean needed.

“Dean, the warding circle you’re proposing…they’re _demonic_ sigils,” Cas said, looking uncomfortable. “I’m not sure –”

“Come on man, you were there too! I remember,” Dean tried to sound encouraging and not bitter. That had happened a long time ago, before Cas rebelled. “You called pretending to be Bobby, and you watched the whole thing.”

In spite of Dean’s effort to not sound like he was berating him, Cas still looked a little bit like a kicked puppy. “Alright,” he said. “I can’t promise I’ll be of much help though.”

Between the two of them they managed to recreate a circle Dean thought was pretty damn close to the one Alastair had used (and didn’t that just make his skin crawl); they’d scratched sigils into the dirt using sticks while Benny stood watch to make sure they weren’t ambushed. God only knew if it would work. Some of the sigils were drawn in the dirt, others spelled out with small rocks and twigs that happened to bend the right way. It wasn’t as clear as if they’d had, say, chalk or paint, and there was the problem of the circle being easily broken if someone stepped in one of the dirt sigils, but it was the best they could do. They’d only get one shot at this. Chances were if they tried to catch a reaper, and failed, it would tell its buddies to stop using this particular spot to ferry monster souls into purgatory.

Waiting around after they were ready was the most frustrating part. Dean stood at the ready for a tense hour before he realized nothing was going to happen any time soon. He slumped against a tree, a strange combination of bored and on-edge. The three of them stood in the clearing for hours, until the light started to fade, miraculously not bothered by monster attacks, considering they’d been standing in the same place for so long.

Finally, after an agonizing wait, Cas perked up.

“It’s opening,” he said. They all rushed to stand up straight and get outside the reaper-trap.

Dean closed his eyes against the blinding flash of light, and opened them to see a reaper (possibly the same one as before, but maybe a different bald, creepy dude in a suit), and a soul who was clearly some kind of monster, but not one Dean recognized. He had small horns, and was wearing a garishly colored plaid shirt.

The monster took one look at the three of them – filthy, armed, and pissed all to hell – and took off running.

The reaper looked supremely annoyed.

“You should not be here,” it said in a deep, raspy voice. It seemed to pause to consider them for a bit, lingering the most on Cas, who stared back defiantly. Then, with an expression that said it would have been shrugging if reapers shrugged, it twirled its hand in a gesture Dean instinctively knew was its way of opening the portal and getting out of here.

Dean had to stop himself from running forward and yelling at the reaper, but he held himself back and, with luck finally turning in Dean’s favor for once, the reaper didn’t disappear.

It scowled, looking even more grim than before, and glared at the forest floor and the circle it was trapped in.

“Release me!” it yelled, power behind the voice that had Dean taking a step backward on instinct. He glanced around to see that Benny was trembling slightly, although his jaw was clenched with determination. Only Cas stood his ground.

Dean swallowed. “We’ll break the circle if you do what we tell you,” he said, trying to sound commanding.

The reaper scoffed. “I do not bow to the whims of man,” it said with a sneer.

“We just need you to get us out of here! That’s not against your job description, hell, it should be something you want!” Dean’s heart was pounding, but he managed to stop himself from taking another step back at its glare.

The reaper softened a bit, and considered him for a long moment. “You should not be here,” it mused. It glanced at Cas. “You should not be here either, Castiel. Your kind dwell in heaven. I will take you to heaven.”

“Now wait a minute,” Dean cut in, panicking. Who knew what the other dickhead angels would do to Cas if that happened? “We need you to take us _all_ back to _earth_ –”

“You I shall take back to your world. You are alive, and you should not be here,” the reaper cut in, speaking to Dean but ignoring him. The reaper turned to Benny. “You _are_ supposed to be here. You must stay here,” it concluded firmly.

“No!” Dean shouted. “That’s not the deal.”

“It’s alright, brother,” Benny said with a sad smile. “I knew this might happen.”

“Like hell this is happening,” Dean growled. “Listen to me, you grim fuck,” he said, pointing at the stupid, calm-looking reaper. “We’re the ones in control here. We have you trapped. And we’re not letting you out unless you agree to take _all_ of us to the mortal plane, or the living world, or whatever you call it!”

“Dean,” Cas started to say, but Dean cut him off.

“You got that Mister I-Know-Where-People-Belong? You’re stuck here until –”

“Then I am stuck here,” said the reaper firmly.

“Dean!” Cas said again, more urgently. “They’re coming – leviathan.”

The bottom dropped out of Dean’s stomach. Sure enough, there was the whistling sound that always preceded leviathan attacks. The worst beasts in purgatory, the ones Dean was continuously most astonished they got away from unscathed. They had about thirty seconds.

“You hear that? Those are beasts _god_ was afraid of, coming to get all of us, even you,” Dean yelled at the reaper, desperate. The reaper, amazingly, did look frightened, and Dean latched onto that. “Yeah, you know enough to know you don’t wanna be anywhere near those bastards. Do what we want and we can all get away from them.”

The reaper waited an agonizing few seconds before it nodded, looking more scared than a grim reaper had any right to. “Destroy the trap and come closer,” it said.

Dean didn’t have to be told twice. He scrubbed out one of the dirt symbols with his boot and rushed toward the reaper, seeing Benny and Cas doing the same out of the corner of his eye.

The reaper raised its hands, but hesitated. “Tell no one I have done this,” it said firmly.

“Dude, I don’t give a shit about your reputation, get us the hell –!” Dean was cut off by a flash of light and a sensation of flying, soaring, floating into blackness. 

* * *

 

When Dean finally felt solid again, he opened his eyes. It was night time. The sky was full of stars, shining down on what finally, blessedly felt like planet earth, like _home_. No more weird grey light, and the soft breeze ruffling his hair didn’t smell of death. He was standing at a dirt crossroads. There was a wooden windmill by the side of the road.

He was alone.

He swallowed, trying not to panic. “Cas?” he called into the darkness. “Benny?”

No answer. Dean’s hands clenched at his sides. If that thing had double-crossed him…Benny was stuck fighting leviathan alone. Cas was…Cas was at the mercy of angels who hated him, alone and friendless in heaven.

“Cas?” he called again, louder. He couldn’t give up hope yet. They were here. They had to be. “Benny?!”

“Over here, brother,” he heard from behind him, and Dean whipped around to see Benny emerging from the tall grass at the roadside. He ran toward him.

Benny spread his arms wide, “Got my body back and everythin’. I reckon this musta been where they buried me. I recognize this place. We’re in Louisiana.” Dean had been right about the accent then.

Dean pulled Benny in for a brief hug, patting him on the back. He was relieved the vampire had made it, but… “Have you seen Cas?” he asked, trying not to sound as scared as he felt.

Benny shook his head, and Dean felt the blood drain from his face. This couldn’t be happening. Not when he’d finally…they were ok again. They were going to stay together, finally. He’d told himself that, it was how he’d made it through purgatory. If they got out, he and Cas could start over, for real, be together without also running for their lives.

He turned around, and faced the crossroads again. “Cas!” he yelled, as loud as he could. “Don’t do this, man, come on!”

“Dean,” came Cas’s voice from the direction of the windmill.

Dean turned toward the voice, hardly daring to believe it. But there Cas was, dirty overcoat, filthy scrubs, scruffy beard and all.

“Cas,” he breathed, and ran toward him. He grabbed Cas’s face in his hands, and, not giving a shit about Benny watching, pulled him in for a hungry, desperate kiss.

They finally pulled apart, Dean resting his forehead against Cas’s. “You scared the shit out of me man,” he choked out, holding onto Cas’s shoulders desperately.

“I think the reaper had some trouble getting me through the gap,” Cas confessed softly, “I was too much, my energy. I doubt it could have taken me to heaven even if it wanted to. Benny’s portal probably wouldn’t have worked for me after all.”

Dean clung to Cas in silence. Crazy luck was the only reason they were standing here together, it seemed. Dean steadied his breathing, reassuring himself. It had worked. They’d all made it. He almost couldn’t believe it, but they were out.

He heard Benny clear his throat behind him, and turned to see the vampire smirking a little. “Well, we all made it. Time to throw a party, I guess. Where too now, boss?”

Dean considered that, marveling that they now had a choice beyond running and fighting. He took Cas’s hand. “I’m in for hotwiring the nearest car and driving until we find somewhere with a shower. And after that, we’re gonna go find Sam and Kevin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks! Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed :)
> 
> I have a vague notion to write a companion fic about what Sam's been up to in this fix-it world, but I'm not sure I'll have the time or inspiration - if I do, I will link it here as part of a series!


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